By Lauren Barbour

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After spending most of their school year working on their projects, students gathered for the National History Day (NHD) state competition on April 12 at Windward Community College. Of the 15 groups from MHS who competed, Junior Timothy Leoncio will be the only one advancing to the national competition after placing second in the documentary category, marking the furthest Leoncio has ever advanced in the NHD competition out of the three times he’s competed.

“I’m really humbled at the fact that I received this opportunity to go and compete at the next level. But I also feel very proud of myself. I worked very hard on this, a lot of sleepless nights working on this documentary through all the stages. It was rough at times, but it turned out to be worth it,” said Leoncio.

Leoncio’s documentary, “Tried and True: The Pentagon Papers and the First Amendment,” centered around the Pentagon Papers, a series of documents detailing the U.S. government’s involvement in the Vietnam War, which were leaked to the public by Daniel Ellsberg. “I was flipping through books and I found this and I was like, ‘Wow, this matches everything perfectly.’ I mean, it has almost every aspect of a conspiracy theory. It was pretty awesome. It had investigative journalism, it had cover-ups, it had war secrets. I was like, ‘This is a pretty interesting topic and I want to do it,’” Leoncio recalled.

Leoncio attributes his success to his interest in the topic and his ability to communicate that feeling to the judges. “It was something that I think is really important in society in general and it’s just something that more and more people should focus on because we tend to miss out on these things when we’re too focused on things like social media. I mean, the more you know, the more power you have to affect the world you live in,” Leoncio said.

A curiosity and the drive to fulfill it was a common theme in the students who competed at the state level. Sophomore Eileen Roco, who based her project on the Russian Revolution, focused specifically on the catalyst of Bloody Sunday, explained, “As soon as I heard the topic for this year then I immediately looked to find something in Russian history and I found the topic and I was appalled that something happened like that and I wanted to learn more about it.”

Leoncio and Roco both decided to compete in the documentary category because of their preference for video editing. “It’s something that I’m more familiar and comfortable doing, it’s something that I enjoy doing,” said Leoncio. Roco added, “A documentary is not only pictures and text, but it’s music, it’s a really deep pathos connection. It’s like immersing (the audience), it’s so cool and you don’t get to do that often so I took it upon myself to.”

After three years competing, Leoncio’s dedication was rewarded. Social Studies teacher Dr. Amy Perruso commented, “You know, he’s been doing documentaries and that’s his chosen medium and I think that he has had projects in the past that I have thought deserved to go on that didn’t make it to the state level or to nationals so I think that for him this is a moment of redemption.” That sentiment was shared whether the students advanced or not. “I just took it wholly as a learning experience of video editing, history and all that good stuff,” said Roco.

The national competition will be held from June 15 to 19 at the University of Maryland. In the time leading up to then, Leoncio will continue modifying and solidifying his work in order to represent MHS well.